When saving from publisher to PDF font color changes?

[HighCountry01]

When creating a document on publisher and converting that doc to a pdf, the font color changes to gray, no matter what color font I use. I just got off the phone with publisher and they concluded that it's an issue with adobe. Anyone else have this problem?

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

By “publisher” do you mean Microsoft Publisher?

Assuming that you mean Microsoft Publisher, how are you creating the PDF file?

If you are creating the PDF file by doing “save as PDF” from Microsoft Publisher's Save As menu item and selecting PDF as the file type, you are not using any Adobe product to produce the PDF file and as such Adobe can't do anything to help you. In my own test however, saving a document from Microsoft Publisher to PDF kept the document's red text red, i.e., no conversion to grayscale.

Alternatively, if you have Adobe Acrobat and are printing to the Adobe PDF PostScript printer driver instance to create PDF, one of the settings in the Microsoft Publisher print dialog is your choice of Composite RGB or Composite Grayscale. Composite grayscale will cause exactly what you are seeing. Change the setting and the gray problem goes away. Unfortunately, the print subsystem of the newer versions of Microsoft Publisher only support Composite RGB or Composite Grayscale. There is no way to pass through CMYK colors.

Generally speaking, Microsoft Publisher is not a serious document layout program, missing many features required for professional publication usage.

          - Dov

[HighCountry01 · Accepted solution]

I actually figured it out, (after quite some effort!). The issue was that the default printer on the computer was a b&w printer, making the text turn an odd gray, no matter what color I made the text.

I knew that the printer had to be a color printer, HOWEVER; I did not know that merely having the document itself set up to print on a color printer is not enough. Any and all printers that have been selected as default have to be color printers.

[Dov Isaacs]

That really sounds like a bug in Microsoft Publisher that you should report to them.

          - Dov

[HighCountry01]

I tried, and they sent me here..so helpful! Haha anyway glad it has been resolved.

[justiceforall]

thank you!  thank you!  saved us a bunch of time attempting to understand this annoying problem!

[slippykeane]

Amanda, thanks--here I am, six months after this post, and ran into the same issue. A quick Google search took me to this thread. I have no idea if or when I would have found a solution if you hadn't posted this. Thank you! --Scott

[marg.herder]

Wow, Dov, was the condescending last paragraph really necessary?  Those of us who use MS Publisher know it has its limitations, but maybe we can't afford an expensive subscription to a "serious" layout program and are trying to get by with what we have. 

[storolaf]

what layout program should we use?

[Test Screen Name]

Adobe InDesign of course is the answer here in this Adobe forum. Warning: it is a professional tool and trying to use it without professional training can be frustrating or disastrous.

[default3yakowumjhlf]

I changed to my color printer as the default but it was still printing out grey text even when I plugged in the port terminal to the printer to bluff a color print.  I just tried cutting the color text and pasting it into windows PAINT text box then cut and pasted it back into the text boxes of my publisher book cover project then saved it as a PDF and it worked.  It will ignore pictures but not the text you typed in.  There's more than ONE WAY to skin a cat!

[Joe30799803axtf]

Maybe I've got a different version of Publisher, but you skin-a-cat didn't work for me.

Anotehr stupid quirk is that it doesn't allow custom bullet making. I use a variation of your cat trick and create custom bullets in Word, then use Greenshot to capture my list then insert it as a picture.

Hmm, I wonder if that would work with color text . . . ?

[Joe30799803axtf]

Yes, that does work! Clunky, but better than $21/month for InDesign.

[jasone11748375]

Thank you! I can't believe that my default being my laser printer (B&W) caused this. Lame!  But, thank you for the fix!

[Daver101]

Well here we are in November 2019, and the problem still exists in Office 365. I seem to be like a lot of you, black and white printer set as default, but there is  a colour printer available, so the problem is easy enough to work  around.

And I use Publisher to produce magazines of various sizes. It  is a great product for what it does.

But glad that this thread was still here Adobe. Thanks.

[storolaf]

Wow, 4 hours trying to fix this, 2 hours on Publisher tech support which after doing nothing to solve it and finally wanted to charge me $29/ hour...which led me to think of when it started....well it worked before I updated MS Windows a week ago, so undid, redid that, and updated Office about the same time to redid that, and then trying to save it as  JPEG file (came in color) putting on Adobe photoshop and then saving it there worked as PDF but lost some resolution.....As was trying to improve that, I found this site.....thanks guys. it works....now I remember, switching printers just after New Years, when our big commerical color printer in office was taken off general use and back to just the one at my desk and which led me to changing defaults....now I got colored fonts....why it just affected text and not pictures befuddled everyone.........what a silly useless glitch, but many thanks

[Debbe 459]

Totally saved my bacon on a simple newsletter. Changed the default printer and I was good to go.

Thanks

[CFDA1]

Changing the default printer solved the problem for me!

Thanks for the info

[Ted2K]

Hey there, I know this is an old thread, but I found that when saving as a PDF, once you have clicked save as PDF, click options, then select CUSTOM! This made all the difference for me! 

[Cathy5E13]

Thank you SO much for this timely tip.  Hard to select a different default printer if you don't have a color printer to select! Choosing "CUSTOM" worked for me.

[frogpole]

Many thanks, just changing the default printer to a colour one didn't work, but the Custom option did, thanks again! Have no idea why, as there were no custom options to change much...if anything.

[dianes51363768]

Hooray for your answer!! By changing my default printer to my color printer with the preference for color mode, the PDF is now in full color - including the colored links. I previously settled for "print as PDF" which kept the colors but the colored links didn't work. Now it all works with the right colors throughout and the right links. Thank you so much for sharing your solution!!

[default6fr21q39j4ou]

That worked for me! 
I had to change my default printer to colour.
Click the Windows button, type Devices and Printers, right click your color printer and select Set as default.
Maybe there's no hope for people with B&W printers?!
And that's to save as a PDF to upload to my website which I don't even want to print.

[Ken27372020y162]

There is hope for people with B&W printers.  When saving as a PDF there is an options tab.  Clicking on this gives 4 selections: Standard, High quality, Commercial, and custom.  Selecting any of of the bottom 3 will give you a true color output based on how you want it printed or displayed.  Publisher has created a way.  You can also choose Microsoft Print to PDF and choose RGB.  This will create a printed PDF in a file to save on  your computer in your selected colors. Refer to the following link for an understanding of the the different printing qualities.  https://www.gflesch.com/blog/cmyk-printing#:~:text=CMYK%20is%20a%20four%2Dcolor,helps%20achieve%20a%....

[Karen29665917bma1]

I have created a monthly newsletter using MS Publisher for 12 years using the same computer and printing on the same printer. Last month for the first time any red titles and headings were converted to black when copying to a .pdf. Pictures and images reproduce fine. Only red or blue text I have included are black. It can't be the program or the equipment unless there has been a program change that has created this very unsettling result. How can I go about converting my Publisher document to .pdf so I can email my newsletter in its original colorful form.